


Meant a lot

by aPaperCupCut



Category: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Harlan Ellison
Genre: AM is his own warning, Canon What Canon?, Drug Use, Drugs, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, M/M, POV First Person, Retrospective, almost a relationship ;_;, anyways book!benny and game!gorrister make me so sad. actually book!gorrister and book!benny too, me over here thinking abt demiace gorrister, ngl the implications in this are :(, racism mention, same general warnings from ihnm prob apply here too, this didnt exactly come out the way i thought it would but it still feels so here ya go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:49:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29751576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aPaperCupCut/pseuds/aPaperCupCut
Summary: Gorrister spends most of his time thinking on the past, and his guilt. Missed opportunities, should've's and could've's but didn't's.
Relationships: Gorrister/Benny, Gorrister/Glynis (mentioned), other relationships mentioned
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	Meant a lot

**Author's Note:**

> gorrister is so fucking hard to write, oh my god. the implications in this arent that subtle, and are :(
> 
> as a general warning: i do tend to think of these characters being from around the mid 1970s-1990s. i know a little (pls highlight that) bit of the social activism scene around that time, and im def in love with gorrister being an activist, so this dips into that just a teeny tad. that said, the language is proooobably dated, but i avoided outright derogatory terms. i did my best for the slang for pot, but man im used to the shit being called stuff like devils lettuce and skunk and just plain old pot. idk the terms from the goddang 1970s but i did try my best *shrug emoji*
> 
> in all honesty the scene of gorrister and benny just sitting together all relaxed and soft made me write this. im a complete sap
> 
> also the song "You Mean A Lot" by Enjoy... at first that was a ellen/ted song but now i just think abt gorrister/benny @-@

It's a sad thing, reminiscing like this. Haven't got much else to focus on, though, so might as well.

For the first year or so, none of us knew how to act around each other. Sure, we'd just been thrown into hell together, there was literally no one else left, and there's nothing like a traumatic experience that can bring a group of people together, but that doesn't account for those awkward moments where someone forgot someone else's name and other such fiascos. Not to mention getting to see someone's insides become their outsides, or being forced to eat some truly repugnant shit, well, it made it all the more awkward to adjust.

But then that year turned to five, then to fifteen, then to twenty-five – and, while nothing's for sure fixed, we got to know each other well enough and we came to know just how fucked we were pretty damn fast. 

AM has its M.O., of course, and it was only later that it got to changing it up. But back then, it was always the same stuff; oh, always painful, always miserable, but it came and it went and in the meantime…

Nimdok – he kept to himself, was the first one AM targeted all on his lonesome. As mysterious as any old folk can be, and yet  _ clearly _ somethin' about him attracted that bastard's attention.  _ There _ was an old man with secrets, right there – and whatever they were, he wasn't telling, and still won't. With all due respect to his age, I suspect that he  _ can't _ even if he wanted to. Got more than a few screws knocked loose, along with all the illnesses of old age that crop up in someone who manages to make it that far in life.

Ted… oh, I remember how  _ small _ the kid was back then. It's a sad thing, just how drastically a person can change. Shortest guy I've ever seen, with those shifty eyes guys get when they've been in their own heads too long; I knew he was gonna lose it in that special way, that awful special way that sinks sadness deep into the soul. I've met more people gone off into those woods than I care to count, and I wish I could help him just as much as I wished I could help those folks. But that's part of what AM does, isn't it? Nothing but regret and  _ should've _ 's. I  _ should've  _ helped him, but I didn't. No changin' the past.

It's better to just let him have his bit and leave him alone. Let him pretend he's the "last sane one" or whatever junk he believes. Tickles AM pink, it does.

The one I truly regret, that guilt that truly does sink its teeth deep in me – that's Ellen.

Ellen knew, right from the start, I think. She's a smart woman, had to be in the fucked up world we used to live in. Especially with all the cards stacked against her like they were, skin and sex – oh, she's sharp as a razorblade. But that insight that she knew – that only dawned on me towards the end of that grace period, before that fucker took her just like it eventually did Ted – made her scared. She didn't speak hardly a peep for a good while, watching all of us. Tryin' to assess us.

Four men and one woman? Hell, it just makes it all the worse that we only felt awkward; she felt terrified, and I know it.

But it was thirty some odd years before AM really got to its truly evil pleasures. Before then – it was Nimdok, quiet except for occasional muttering, it was Ted, watching and talking up a storm about nothing at all to anybody who'd sit still for two seconds, it was Ellen, keeping her head down and crying when she thought nobody would hear her.

It was Benny – sad eyed, clear eyed, hopelessly-hopeful-eyed  _ Benny. _ Benny, who would let Nimdok mutter on to him, Benny, who would get Ted to listen for once,  _ Benny _ , who somehow always knew how to sneak over to Ellen when she hid away and always got her to come back with him. Benny, who never lied.

Now, I'm not gonna lie and say that I knew right off the bat. Of course I didn't; it's a scummy thing, to claim you can tell that kind of shit from a person at first glance. For all I know, any of the others could be queer, or gay, or what-have-you, but it was Benny who said it right off the bat. Like he thought it was compulsory or something – hell, you ever hear a funnier thing?

_ "I just don't want to make any of you uncomfortable,"  _ he said. I remember how wide everybody's eyes went, all confused and gobsmacked.  _ "And, you know, I think it'd be terrible to die, unknown like that." _

He'd gone and just said it, easy as you please; a brave man, was what he'd been. A much braver man than I could ever pretend to be, and a much more honorable one, too. He was brave up til the very end, the damn idiot.

I wish that I wasn't such a fool. I wish for a lot of things, but wishes are for fishes and we haven't got any fish. They're all dead, along with everything else.

Benny was the one, back then, who tried to keep us all together. Tried to make us a group, not just some assholes all thrown in and having to suffer each other's company. Ellen took it up after the other foot dropped, but she doesn't – she's only doing it out of some sense of obligation. As if there needs to be at least one of us with that hopeless-hope that we all pretend isn't so bad, even though we all know it makes it worse.

By now, I'm just waiting. Waiting for AM to get tired of its stupid games, waiting for one of us to break irreparably – it's gonna be Ted and we all know it, the poor damn fool, constantly flapping his gums as if that'll change how miserable we all are – I'm waiting til it's finally over. Call me a push over, call me suicidal, call me whatever the hell you please. It won't change the truth.

The truth: we're all going to die, at some point. Not that it'll be any time soon, and it's not like mortality matters hardly at all anymore; living is hell, death will be hell. There's nobody left and there's nobody waiting for us.

I wish I had done something, anything. When Benny would smile and Ellen would glance around, and Ted would quiet down and watch all of us, and Nimdok would murmur stories he scraped up from somewhere. None of it did anything at all, but I wish I hadn't–

Well. Gotta move on. No choice for it.

Remembering it won't do a damn thing, but at least I still can. Unlike Nimdok, or… or Benny.

The first ten or so years, AM gave us little small things to… keep our spirits up, I suppose. Rewards for bein' such good screamers for it. I guess it thought it more enjoyable to get us feelin' good, feelin' ok, before yanking it all away. The withdrawal symptoms were hell, too, so I guess it was right, but it got tired of playing the long game. Nowadays, it just dangles the  _ chance  _ of something good in front of our faces, and laughs when we inevitably fall apart once we realize it was never gonna happen to begin with. I don't know about any of the others, but I can't stop that split second moment where I hope – I've had enough practice by now to kill it dead right quick, but it still happens.

The last time it fed the vices it'd so carefully cultivated into thriving, was also the last time it let Benny walk 'round with a clear head.

In the beginning of it all, when we'd wake up and there, in the middle of our pathetic little camp, would be a pile of all kinds of things – I'd taken one look and had known what the cursed machine was trying to do. Manipulating someone with drugs isn't exactly hard to do, especially if you get them hooked. I'd taken one look, and I tried – I swear I did. None of us touched any of it for a good… hell, I lost track. But we did try. None of us were stupid, and as clear as an exit from pain those things could be, it was just as clear what AM wanted.

But it just… left them there.

I'm not all that smart regarding drugs, obviously. I've lived rough, sure, but I kept my nose as clean as I could. Besides, never had any interest. Saw what it did to relatives, to old friends, and never once needed anything harder than a whiskey before bed and painkillers now and again, so never paid much attention to it beyond the worse after effects. Don't know who made the first move; in the end, the only one who never made a habit of it was Nimdok, and that's because he didn't have enough left in his skull to use every chance he got. No, that was the rest of us.

It's been a long time. I doubt… I think Ellen remembers, but she's too busy trying to keep herself together, trying to keep her head up, to miss it. And I do miss it. Never touched the real hard stuff – no, no. Alcohol, cigarettes, sometimes cigars or chewing tobacco when AM was bein' real cocky. Drank heavy, for awhile.

At first, we all squirreled away from each other; trying to pretend we hadn't had anything, nope, tried to pretend we didn't know anything at all. But it was damn lonely, drinking away your misery all alone. Damn lonely, made it all the worse, so was it any surprise at all that eventually we gravitated to keeping company?

In those quiet, dim lighted moments, when I'd grabbed a nice bottle of vodka and a pack of cigs from the pile, ignoring the bizarre lamps and pots and what I thought might be opium and baggies of cocaine, I remember lookin' over and – Nimdok ending up sitting between Ted and Ellen, lost in his own head while those two shot each other glancing looks outta the corners of their eyes, and then there was Benny, coming up right beside me.

I don't know how it began, or when it started goin' wrong. If you can call it wrong. I felt like I shoulda stopped it. I feel like I shoulda leaned in while I had the chance.

Benny and I had grouped up, just like Ted, Ellen, and Nimdok had, but while I'm positive that they all just craved some kinda company and nothing untoward happened (hell, the idea itself is laughable), there was something…

That last time, we tried to talk about it. Maybe that's why AM put a stop to our supply. Can't make certain your toys are as miserable as possible if two or more of 'em get funny ideas.

Ha.  _ Funny. _ As if it hadn't been terrifying, as if I hadn't felt so damn guilty. Glynis always said that she'd be ok if I moved on, she'd been dead for years by that point, but I still didn't want to admit it. How do you admit something like that? I hadn't ever thought about it, not really; me and Glynis, we got involved in a few movements, groups and organizations just trying to find a better way, but we'd always been outsiders in some fashion. I still remember a bit of the terms, but it hadn't had much to do with me outside of trying to help where I could. And once Glynis died, well, I'd sunk into my job and didn't have time anymore. The only people I've ever felt like this for have been her, highschool sweethearts we'd been, and… Benny.

The drugs were both a distraction and a catalyst. But Benny was a kind heart, soft heart, and a catalyst just excellerates what's already there.

Benny knew exactly what he liked; sometimes he got chatty, and that's how I learned that he'd had a habit for Mary Jane in his teenage years, before he committed to getting his degree and went on to teaching at his university. So it was really no wonder at all that he went straight for the packets of joints and what I learned later were edibles. He got all comfy whenever he smoked, softer than usual, even.

That was a word I could apply to him.  _ Soft. _ Soft brown eyes, soft brown hair, soft smile and soft skin. Glynis hadn't been soft, not really. She was delicate, clean lines, like clouds and water vapour, always running colder than me. Benny, now, Benny ran warm.

The first time I thought that was the moment the guilt sank into me. Insidiously, it crawled under my skin, only drowned out by a good buzz and Benny sending me  _ soft _ looks, as if he knew exactly what was going on through my mind.

We usually started sitting up, in a quiet, dark spot, away from our measly campfire and our companions. I wouldn't look at him. It felt shameful to, as if I was a voyeur, watching him choose which out of his stash he was gonna take that round. He never grabbed any pipes, preferring, even, to sometimes roll his own joints when he could. I'd choke down a swallow of bitter vodka, or maybe whiskey or occasionally rum, pretend that I wasn't watching his fingers.

As I drank and he smoked, we'd slowly slide down the slope of rock we'd settled up against, and at one point or another we'd end up nearly flat on our backs, sitting hip to hip. Contact high, I think it was for me, and getting drunk outta my gourd didn't help matters. Sometimes, Benny would get all quiet; other times, he'd just start in on some story or other, something about someone somewhere, ages ago, and I'd  _ uh-huh _ my way through the conversation, all the while watching that animated face smile and grin and laugh, sometimes… sometimes cry.

The last time – well, by that point I'd had it bad. Had it bad for Benny. Had it bad with the drinking, the tobacco, the – the goddamn pot, because there's nothin' easier than convincing a drunk to take a few pulls and go higher than a kite. Playing with fire, but what did it matter? If any of us od'd, AM would just revive us again. Give us hell to pay, of course, but none of it mattered at all. And the chances it'd fail were low, but I never once put it outta my mind; and what a blissful way to die, was what I thought. Benny all cozied up next to me, me practically in his lap like I was a damn teenager – yeah, I was positive it'd be the best way to go. Listening to him, nodding along as he ran his fingers through my hair.

_ "You doing alright, Gorrister?" _ He asked that, every time. Patted my arm, as if checking that it was still there, checking that AM had healed it back on right. Sometimes patting and smoothing his hand down my back even if I hadn't been the punching bag that time. I always wondered at how he stumbled on my name, as if he wanted to give  _ me  _ – me, an old washed up has been trucker, outta shape and roughed up, sore over a dead wife and a dead life – a damn nickname.

I had nodded, lurched and slipped off him. Already on the verge of a blackout that would never come. Benny had stopped letting me smoke so much by then; by that point, too, I'd told him too many things. Too much about waking up early every morning, checking to see if this time will be the time I got it right, that maybe  _ this _ time is the moment AM had decided it was sick of us. Too much about Glynis, about what it'd felt like to watch her get sicker and sicker, what it'd felt like when her mother whisked her away and claimed I'd made her sick. What it felt like when the state declared her incompetent or some other bullshit, when she was labelled a dependent and her mother as her  _ caretaker. _

Benny had a partner, before this. Said his name didn't matter anymore; but I think he said that more because thinking about it hurt too much. Just like me, just like the others – it was better not to think at all.

AM sure got us that time. Going cold turkey was made all the worse for how he starved us.

I remember, in between moments where the world spun gently and it felt like Benny was the only thing keeping me from drifting off, I remember asking him,  _ "Do you think they would forgive us?" _

I don't know what made me say it. I almost forgot I had, until he replied,  _ "Do you want them to?" _

_ "...No," _ I had said, and we hadn't talked at all after. Not in words, at least.

He'd simply laid beside me, and somehow I wound up with my face so close to his that I could watch as he blinked sleepily back at me. His eyelashes, his pupils dilated and the whites slightly red. He smelled strongly, I remember, but it hadn't been all that different from the usual smells AM assaulted our senses with daily; it was fine, to me. To just sit with him, the whole world gone fuzzy and distant, our own little bubble keeping all the hurt away. Benny was –  _ still is _ – a tactile person, always touching, always soothing. He had that aura about him, the kind that just made you feel calm, relaxed. Or maybe that was the weed, but I find that I don't care at all. He made me feel calm, which, when the alternative was a constant low grade panic that I could never escape, was just as addictive as any drug could be.

Kissing is a mutual activity, but in all honesty I've always thought that I kissed Glynis, and Benny kissed me. 

It wasn't anything deep; both of us were too far from sober to make it serious. But I still remember the way he'd so carefully touched my face, before he leaned in, kissing my cheek softly. I remember drunkenly – and sloppily – kissing his forehead, between his eyebrows. He'd laughed, all quiet-like, grabbed my hand and said nothing at all.

There's something like grief in my chest, remembering that. Remembering waking up slowly, hung over, and seeing something – wrong. Knowing  _ something _ was wrong the instant I woke up.

I know everybody saw it. That delay in his eyes, his slouch more pronounced, just… the slightest possible change, and yet we all felt it. When the pile vanished, it distracted all of us – and I know that it went much slower than what my mind recalls. But watching him distort and break apart in slow motion is more painful than pretending that we woke up one day and he was warped, instantly, beyond repair. I could fool myself into believing that he's  _ no longer Benny, _ but the truth is that he still is. He still is. Benny hasn't gone away. He's just sick, and he's never going to get better. I think of it like when you're so feverish you can't think straight; that's what he's feeling, I think.

I'm not an idiot, and I'm not a liar. I know that I've abandoned him, just like I abandoned Ellen, just like I abandoned Ted. Just like I gave up, didn't fight when Glynis called me begging me to help her, that her mother was starving her and beating her. Nobody would believe me. Why fight the inevitable?

But he meant a lot. I wish I had done so much more than I had, but those memories are still ones I treasure. Reminiscing doesn't change any of it, but it lets me experience them again. He meant a lot.

  
  
  
  



End file.
